Chau Doc, where the flood arrives

Chau Doc is a busy river town, a pilgrimage centre and a border crossing, all at once. For a learning trip it has four things nowhere else in the delta has together. The first is the river itself, which arrives here from Cambodia carrying the autumn flood; in October 2025 the flood peak at Chau Doc was forecast at 3.50–3.70 m, well below the record of 4.90 m set in 2000. The second is aquaculture on the water: the national tourism authority describes a floating fish-farm village on the Hau River about fifty years old, with fish raised in cages under the houses.

The third is the Cham. Across the river at Chau Giang and Chau Phong live Cham Muslim communities with their mosques and stilt houses; the Mubarak mosque, first built in 1750 and rebuilt in 1922, is the only mosque in An Giang ranked a national relic. Nationally the 2019 census counted 178,948 Cham. The fourth is Sam Mountain, about 284 m high, with some two hundred religious sites on its slopes and the temple of the Lady of the Realm at its foot, whose festival UNESCO added to its intangible heritage list in December 2024.

About 25 km away, Tra Su is a melaleuca forest of some 850 ha that stands in water through the flood season. It shows what much of this area looked like before canals and high dykes turned it into rice land.

• If you have two days or fewer in the delta — the drive takes too large a share
• During the Lady of the Realm festival, unless that is your subject
• If you cannot respect dress codes at the mosque: covered arms and legs, headscarves for women in prayer areas
• If your group dislikes small open boats; the fish farms and Tra Su are visited by boat